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In Hayao Miyazaki’s dystopian future, at least we’ll still have classic Alfa Romeos

Our heroes make their escape in a Giulietta Spider in the 'On Your Mark' music video

January 11, 2017

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Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 animated film Princess Mononoke recently returned to theaters for a limited 20th anniversary run, and your author didn’t want to miss the chance to see the much-acclaimed classic on the big screen. Before the main attraction, the theater screened the Miyazaki-directed, Studio Ghibli-produced short film/music video “On Your Mark,” a curiously disjointed seven-minute sci-fi odyssey set to a song of the same name by the Japanese band Chage and Aska.

The short film was a treat for hardcore Miyazaki fans and a nice surprise for casuals like me, who didn’t even know the 1995 music video project existed.

“On Your Mark” takes place at an undetermined point down the road, apparently after some sort of nuclear disaster. People have abandoned the countryside for a Blade Runner-esque underground cityscape; it's a grim world full of trigger-happy future cops, cultists and a flying angel child. (Just go with it.) On the vehicular front, we see the the requisite police hovercopters, some massive six-wheeled trucks -- probably a fairly accurate look at what the average full-size pickup will look like in 2035 -- and, out of nowhere, a lovingly drawn Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider.

The whole thing is weird, but cool -- watch it for yourself up above and see.

Anyway, people with a lot of time on their hands like to go back and forth about what it all really means, especially given the short film’s deliberately nonlinear, recursive storyline. You don’t have to dig too deep to enjoy it, though, or even speak Japanese, for that matter. Apparently, the lyrics are only loosely related to what’s going on in the animation, and the joy that comes from escaping to the countryside in an old Italian convertible needs no subtitling to be understood. Especially when it's rendered by a master like Miyazaki. You can almost hear that Twin Cam singing ...

We all know that feeling.

Graham Kozak
- Graham Kozak drove a 1951 Packard 200 sedan in high school because he wanted something that would be easy to find in a parking lot. He thinks all the things they're doing with fuel injection and seatbelts these days are pretty nifty too.
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